


Radiance

by wordfullyyours



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/F, F/M, Rilaya, girl meets first date, maya pining over riley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordfullyyours/pseuds/wordfullyyours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Life is changing, isn’t it?” she’d asked, in her innocent Riley way, and it broke Maya’s heart a little because yes, it was changing, and it would never be just Riley and Maya again. She was always going to have to share Riley with a thousand Lucases to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radiance

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at a Rilaya fic! This is a response to Girl Meets First Date.

She was thirteen, and staring herself down in the mirror.

First date. First date. First date. 

Okay, so Riley was going on her first date. No big deal. No big deal that she resented Lucas for the way Riley looked at him, no big deal that she wanted to be Lucas, no big deal that the whole time she was pushing them together she hated herself a little bit more. 

She was Maya. She was fierce. She was Riley’s best friend, and she loved Riley, and if Lucas was going to make Riley happy then she was going to support it and she was going to support her best friend on her date by going with Farkle.

Because Riley was head over heels for Lucas. The look in her eyes when she asked Maya why she’d asked Lucas out…and then the way her arm had felt when she wrapped it around Maya’s shoulders.

“Life is changing, isn’t it?” she’d asked, in her innocent Riley way, and it broke Maya’s heart a little because yes, it was changing, and it would never be just Riley and Maya again. She was always going to have to share Riley with a thousand Lucases to come.

Her voice had cracked when she said “Yes. But this never will,” hoping that maybe, just maybe, by saying it out loud she could make it true.

Of course she didn’t want Farkle to be her first date, had never even envisioned her first date with any boy. But if it meant making Riley happy, and if it meant being by her side on her first date, then she would go.

Even if she couldn’t stop remembering Riley’s hands on her shoulders, the way she’d looked really hard right at Maya’s eyes, asking “Do you trust me?”

“More than anyone in the world,” Maya had responded, honestly, heart leaping a little because this was the kind of moment she envisioned right before their lips met.

But then Riley said “Don’t turn around,” and Maya’s heart sank because she was sure she knew what it was, and she turned to look at Josh with some college girl, as if she really cared about that—as if she weren’t only pretending to convince everyone and maybe herself a little bit that she did like boys.

She stared at the mirror so hard she thought maybe it would crack and then she braided her hair back and pulled on the sparkly gold jacket Riley had picked out with her. 

And then she was walking into Riley’s bedroom and she maybe forgot how to breathe a little because Riley looked like she was glowing and sparkling and radiating…something, and then Maya swallowed and forced herself to breathe because dammit, you’re Maya, you're unshakable.

She took a breath and swallowed everything down, way down into the box she kept locked at the bottom of her heart, and she was able to smile and act blasé and be typical Maya, typical Maya, as if everything she wore on her skin wasn’t just a costume, as if she didn’t walk around dragging a secret the weight of a cement block that filled her lungs and choked her alone in bed at night.

“For someone who does not care, you do look pretty ouchie-wa-wa,” Riley was saying, and Maya’s thoughts were drumming, saying of course you care, just not about Farkle, and Maya just smiled and played it off, as if she weren’t dressed up in the hopes that maybe she could catch Riley’s eye too.

She made a joke about Josh being locked away in her dungeon of sadness, but she was the only one who appreciated its irony, the only one who knew that by Josh she meant Riley.

And then they were walking down the subway steps, and all she could see were Lucas’s eyes, focused on Riley, and all those ugly resenting thoughts were rising in her head again. Lucas, head over heels for Riley. Riley, head over heels for Lucas.

Maya, maybe a little bit head over heels for Riley. She wanted to pull Riley away, up the steps, back to Riley’s bedroom where it was just the two of them and Lucas could never see how absolutely radiant Riley was—only Maya.

Josh on the subway, Josh with the same college girl. She fell into the role of heartbroken teenager, sat next to him on the subway bench, said the lines she knew Riley was waiting to hear.

“How do you deal with it?” he asked.

“Well me, I’ve got this dungeon of sadness,” she said.

“Oh yeah? You got me in there?” he asked.

She squinted at him a little, played along, filling in the wrong answers with the right ones in her head. “Oh yeah. You and a whole flock of ballerinas.”

You, she thought, thinking about Riley, thinking about how close she was sitting to Lucas in that goddamn dress that had her dizzy.

Maybe she was playing it up a little. Maybe she was acting more upset about Josh than she should be, but Riley was leaving her date to be with Maya, and Maya couldn’t turn away Riley’s undivided attention no matter how good of a best friend she wanted to be.

Only Riley was too good, too good for her, and she knew how much Riley wanted to be with Lucas, and she pushed her back into his lap, and watched as they had one of those sweet first date moments, and then Riley was grabbing Lucas’s face and kissing him sweetly, and Maya thought maybe she didn’t have a heart anymore at all. Maybe the speed of this whole week, this whole night, the speed of the goddamn subway that had sent Riley flying to his arms, had ripped her heart out.

She was only half there, after that, going back to Riley’s room, sitting with her in their bay window, listening to Riley describing the kiss. She wanted so badly to feel relief, that now it was just her and Riley alone, that she would get to feel the warmth of Riley sleeping beside her but instead everything was different. Every time Maya looked at her she only saw her kissing Lucas, and she felt very suddenly and keenly that Lucas would always be there between them now.

“You realize, Maya, that life as we know it has changed,” Riley said, and Maya almost laughed out loud because no one had realized that terrifying fact more than her, but all she said was, “Scared?”

“No. I got you,” Riley said, and then Maya’s heart was lightening a little bit, leaning into Riley.

She kissed Riley’s forehead, later, gently in the darkness, listening to her soft breathing.  “I got you,” she whispered, laying back down on her pillow. She swallowed. “No matter what. I’ll be here.”


End file.
